For the past few years, Cambodia has been enjoying significant growth in the digital scene. In 2017, the continuing increase in the Kingdom’s digital statistics is testament to the country’s thrust to embrace the digital age. Since last year, the total number of active Internet users in the Kingdom has risen by 2.1million. Active social media users and active social mobile users have both seen a 1.5million increase each, to 4.9million and 4.4million respectively.

Facebook has firmly established itself as the choice social media platform for Cambodian users with a total of 4.8million users recorded in 2017, amounting to a whopping 1.4 million growth since 2016. The year has also seen the rise of Instagram as another viable platform for the Cambodian audience with 111,000 daily active users.

In terms of content, we’re currently accustomed to seeing photos, external links and videos form the bulk of our Facebook feeds but Facebook’s latest acquisitions might be about to change content as we know it.

This year, big movements are expected in the areas of Virtual Reality (VR) with Facebook’s usage of the Oculus Rift technology. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, has already confirmed a 250 million investment into VR with the view of it revolutionising Facebook’s entertainment content. Their appointment of one of the tech industry’s most innovative minds, Hugo Barra, as the Vice President of VR and the leader of Oculus shows Facebook’s intentionality in developing this type of content.

In addition to Oculus, Facebook is also working on bringing its content to as yet unreached areas through its Aquila technology. Aquila is an unmanned solar powered plane that Facebook is preparing to launch to bring the Internet to places like Africa where Internet connection can be fairly limited.

It’ll also be intriguing to see how else content and digital electronics as a whole will evolve after Californian startup Nascent Objects was added to Facebook’s list of acquisitions.

Nascent provides customers with a modular electronics system that consumers could use to build gadgets suited to their needs with the package including reconfigurable sensors, batteries, cameras and more. While still very much in its infancy, this could pave the way for Facebook to eventually interact with connected objects and have an impact on the Internet of things.

On top of social media, the Kingdom has also seen a steep increase in interest towards areas like digital payments and tech based startups.

With that as the backdrop, take a look at the infographic below, accompanied by quotes from key industry players to explore how Cambodia’s digital scene might grow in the years to come and how it can affect a wide range of industries.